So for example, the player might come across a devilish system of living wires that have embedded themselves into the flesh of a poor creature, and he wants to remove them without harming the creature. The GM decides that this is an Intimidating task (Difficulty 6), so the player must roll 18 or higher to succeed. However, the player's character is trained in healing and quick fingers, both of which (the GM rules) are applicable to the task, lowering the difficulty to 4. Now he only needs to roll a 12 or higher to succeed.

The player also decides that he really, really doesn't want to accidentally kill this poor creature, so he spends four levels of Effort on the task (costing him 9 Speed—we'll talk about how that is calculated later). In doing so, he reduces the difficulty of the task to zero, and so he automatically succeeds (no roll).

It doesn't take careful analysis to see that Effort quickly becomes more important than skills in terms of succeeding at difficult tasks (though skills allow a player to succeed at certain kinds of tasks more often). Not only does this system allow any character to attempt any task, but Effort also allows players to choose which tasks are most important to them and which tasks they're more willing to gamble on.

I want to give a short suggestion about using effort when defending. I don't want to only use it vs first attack, it is too limiting, but I agree that having the slider appear before each defend action would be stupid.

So how about where you have the defense Effort slider there is also a button that I click and then click on enemy on the battlefield and I mark that enemy and my Effort is used to defend only vs this one enemy attack no matter if they attack first, last or not at all?

It should not be that hard to implement and it will allow players some choice in using Effort by marking the target. If players don't mark anyone, they just use Effort vs first attacker (if they chosen to use Effort at all).

Edit: take into consideration that in pnp you can if you want use effort vs each separate attack since it can be used once per action and each defense roll is separate action so in situations where characters have enough edge so at least 1 level of effort is free they should get that as default vs all attacks not just one.

Last edited by -Archangel- on February 25th, 2015, 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Skie wrote:A very interesting and nice way to deal with tasks.
I wonder if I'll manage to not savescum <.<

Hehe same for me But I guess I'll manage to impose myself rules such as "ok, one try without effort, if it doesn't work reload and one try with effort, and if it's still doesn't work let's go with the failure unless it's really really important".

Man that render is beautiful, better even than PST at widescreen. I have to say after playing the Pillars of Eternity beta, Age of Empires II HD and more recently Resident Evil HD I have fully converted to the church of pre-rendered backgrounds.

-Archangel- wrote:I want to give a short suggestion about using effort when defending. I don't want to only use it vs first attack, it is too limiting, but I agree that having the slider appear before each defend action would be stupid.

So how about where you have the defense Effort slider there is also a button that I click and then click on enemy on the battlefield and I mark that enemy and my Effort is used to defend only vs this one enemy attack no matter if they attack first, last or not at all?

It should not be that hard to implement and it will allow players some choice in using Effort by marking the target. If players don't mark anyone, they just use Effort vs first attacker (if they chosen to use Effort at all).

Edit: take into consideration that in pnp you can if you want use effort vs each separate attack since it can be used once per action and each defense roll is separate action so in situations where characters have enough edge so at least 1 level of effort is free they should get that as default vs all attacks not just one.

I think that this is really nice solution to the problem. I really dislike the option to apply effort only on the first enemy attack. It's really limiting. Let's take for example that mentioned swarm of steel spiders. They are fast (they aren't really), they have better initiative than their friend the "construct of the mists" that is really slow but it hits hard. Spiders will attack before him, but I don't want to spend my effort on them, they are easy to dodge as long as I'm not near their webs. That construct on the other hand has some special attacks, he hits hard and he hits quickly so it's harder for me to dodge. I don't want to dodge spiders I want to dodge construct. Also I don't think I need to be punished if he chooses to do something else for his action, I think we should not spend defensive effort before the actual roll. We should "prepare" it like you suggested, but spend it only when he attacks us.

Also as far as your edit part goes, I assumed they already want to do that already, maybe I'm wrong.

Drool wrote:

you'll be able to change this in the Game Options to show the actual target number (i.e. the Task Difficulty multiplied by 3) or to not show any difficulty at all.

Very nice.

I love the effort system, it gives the opportunity to every character to try and pass some more difficult tasks. The thing is that I feel I must give some feedback to my players about task difficulty rate. I use those abstract labels which aren't exactly abstract. When I play I tend to use not so specific descriptions, for example everything below 9 is "easier" task, 9-15 is something along the lines "it can be challenging", 15+ is "it's very hard/impossible". Sometimes players want exact number, for some tasks I totally agree with them and go with the flow and give them the number they need to beat. I like to do that especially in combat, since in that case I feel that they should see for themselves if they failed or not. For example if I only said that it is a challenging task, and they roll a 11 and they actually need a 12 it feels like I made a decision if they failed, not their roll. I understand that is my duty as GM to keep the game running and not to rely on the dice, but as far as the combat goes, I like to do that in the open with intrusions. Now we are talking about pnp here, my gaming group likes when we play it like this. I'm certain that it could be fun to not use target numbers/difficulty labels at all and to rely on your spider senses when you see a guy trying to hit you with his glowing stick of doom.

In any case to get back to the point, I feel that showing difficulty labels would be the same as showing a target number. Since when it shows "standard" you will know that you need 6 or more. I like that we have that option, but like I said I feel that those 2 are almost the same.

Yea, I agree that each difficulty number should not have a unique name or it is essentially the same. For us that don't want to know exact difficulty but only want a vague idea, it would be good to have less specific descriptions.

@damirius: I guess that your wish will be fulfilled as well...
Anyways, the renderer is really good for being "work in progress"---well, have to agree on Crosmando!
@Inxileteam: As soon as torment gets near to release PLEASE REMEMBER INCLUDING SUPERSAMPLING for your characters! It would make it possible to actually get the same level of quality for both real-time rendered and prerendered stuff with quite little effort needed from you side!

You've talked extensively about Effort in many occasions by now, but there's still a piece of the puzzle missing, at least to me. How do you intend to limit rest in the Torment?

I mean, managing Effort is an interesting gameplay mechanic. but only because Effort is a limited resource. If players are able to rest whenever they want, the whole thing explodes.

Now, I know that during Cryses time is a factor, so resting will be either limited or impossible, but what about the "normal gameplay"? Will Players be able to rest freely in exploration mode?

Not usually.

Background: I explained the Numenera concept of Effort, and how we're adapting it for Torment, in our latest update here. Short version: Effort is a limited resource used to make difficult tasks easier. This resource can be replenished with healing or rest.

Alessandro, you are absolutely right (as are others I've seen around the internets who have expressed a similar concern): if healing is freely and easily attainable -- as it would be with a "rest anywhere" mechanic -- then Effort becomes meaningless. You could just use it all up on a task, rest to replenish, then use it all again on the next task.

So obviously the player will not be able to rest anywhere they want for free. You'll have quick rests you can use anywhere, but those are limited and they won't restore all your Stat Pools. Eventually your party will need to sleep. To do that, you'll have to find a place that will let you sleep for a price you can afford. Every Zone will have such a place, of course, but you won't be able to rest wherever and whenever.

Can you just head back to the rest spot in between tasks? Sometimes, sure. Other times you won't be able to get back so easily. Sometimes you'll need to do a few tasks in a row to accomplish something. And sometimes sleeping (which makes time pass) will have other consequences as well.

So sleeping will usually come with a cost. That cost might be trivial or it might be quite high. It will depend on what you want to do, where you are in the game, and what's more important to you at the time.

I had a question for a while, about rest and stuff. Is it part of narrative, or it's just pacing mechanic? To dig further, I mean, it might be done like "find a place > pay a price (quest or jink) > stuff your bodies > transitioning screen > go forward."

Or the other way: companions might start to act and talk somewhat differently, when they're relaxed, some new dialogue might appear at the evening or in the morning, or maybe Castoff might wake up suddenly in the night and see something, about one of his companions (imagine simple scene, where all that tough and weird guys is just sleeping: no plotting, no sassing, no morally-questionable suggestions) or a place, where they rest itself. Nothing particulatly quest related, but good for a story. Not always, but once in a while.

On a contrary, I'm okay with you at inXile just reading it. You don't have to answer this one.